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Tick-Tock

I cannot WAIT to have this baby.

I'm only fifteen weeks pregnant at this point, so I haven't even hit the halfway mark yet. But as I was doing step aerobics today (after which I guzzled down a ginger ale, ate a Jethro Bodine-sized bowl of chili, and baked a batch of cookies, thereby negating the whole workout plus some), I was watching one of those birth shows on the Discovery Channel. And as I watched the various mothers bringing new lives into the world, I reflected on what a cruel waiting game pregnancy is. It's like carrying around a much-anticipated Christmas present for nearly a year, nonstop, without getting to open it.

I'm so excited for the day when the wait is over, and I can finally see my baby's precious face. Yes, that day comes with the unpleasantries of needles and catheters. Yeah, it involves a paper-thin gown that makes me look even more grotesquely bovine than I already do at nine months pregnant ... and the fear of taking a dump on the delivery table ... and a roomful of virtual strangers ogling (and/or probing) my nether regions. Sure, I could do without the contractions, and the post-birth mega-super-maxi pads (diapers, more accurately), and the painful squishing of my uterus by sadistic nurses who swear they're "just helping it return to normal size." But every poke, prod, push, and pinch, and all the long, arduous nine months preceding them, become so worth it the minute I see that little face for the very first time.

Until then, though, I'll just have to tote around my little "Christmas present" (fitting, since he or she was conceived on Christmas Eve!) and count down the days. I need one of those advent-type calendars ...